


'til no space lies in between

by haloud



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Handprint Fic, M/M, emetophobia cw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 05:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20688173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud
Summary: It isn't easy for Michael to learn how to heal, not when he knows what the handprint left behind can do. So he does the only thing he can, and goes to Alex.





	'til no space lies in between

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from venus by sleeping at last (go listen to it go go go)  
written for day 2 of michael guerin week
> 
> this fic is not for redistribution without express permission.

Isobel takes to telekinesis like a split atom; Max takes to the power of suggestion with an air of grim responsibility. Michael’s hands glow red when he lets them, but healing—it’s not so easy. Max and Isobel shrug, not knowing what to say. Isobel suggests there’s a mental component to healing and Michael may be blocking it as he unconsciously does most of their more cerebral abilities. Max struggles to put it into words—

“It’s either like trying to crush stone with your bare hands, or it’s as easy as exhaling.”

And that makes about as much sense as anything else they’ve puzzled out about their powers. Michael was no help, either, with telekinesis, which to him is just like any other muscle that he can flex or twitch without conscious thought.

Michael knows what he has to do for a couple weeks before he gets to doing it.

No one ever really comes to Alex’s cabin unannounced, if only because it’s a bit of a drive and a real pain in the ass if he’s not even there. If Michael had to guess, that’s the reason Alex is even still out there full time, even with Jesse gone from Roswell for good.

Michael breaks that unspoken rule with his heart in his throat, ready to wait as long as he might need to, no matter what Alex’s answer will be. So ready, in fact, that he almost throws the car in reverse when he sees Alex sitting on the porch, dog at his feet. He thought he’d have more time to think of what to say—

But maybe this is better, ‘cause the thinking’s been the problem for a while.

“Guerin?” Alex asks mildly, not getting up from his chair as Michael climbs down from his truck, crosses the driveway, and then stops, lingering, at the foot of the porch steps.

“You can say no if you need to, because I’m thinkin’ this won’t be easy,” Michael leads with, his whole body an apology for what he’s about to ask.

“Why don’t you ask what you want from me first, and then I’ll pass down the verdict.”

Is this something Alex does often—spend the evening watching the desert change, the sun setting in his eyes? And is—is Michael ready, for all that he’s come here, is he _really _ready to know what Alex spends these evenings thinking?

“Alex,” he says, because the shape of it in his mouth will always be the same. No matter what’s happened, he’s always had that.

“Whatever’s happened, we’ll handle it together,” Alex offers. Unconditional. Uncompromising.

And with a helpless smile at the corner of his mouth, Michael says, “I know it’s a lot to ask, but—would you let me heal you?”

Alex tilts his head at that, and he’s quiet for a long moment. Then he smiles, close-mouthed and gentle, and stands up. The dog gets up as well and stretches her compact little body, trotting inside ahead of either of them. “Okay, Guerin,” he says. “Michael. Okay.” And he holds the door for Michael to come inside.

* * *

Alex holds Michael’s hand over his chest while he does it. And—and here it is, and this is why it had to be Alex. He rubs his thumb in slow, sweeping lines across the back of Michael’s hand, and Michael closes his eyes and sinks down, sinks deep, into that star-filled place inside him. Or maybe it’s just the lights everyone sees when they close their eyes too tight, but it’s always looked like stars to Michael.

Maybe Isobel is right, and the reason he couldn’t manage to heal when practicing on Max or Isobel is because he had some sort of mental block. And if it’s true, in his heart Michael knows the reason, and, crucially, he’s ready for Alex to know too.

Isobel says _isn’t there anyone you would risk everything to save, _and even with most of the secrets laid bare between them, he isn’t ready for her to feel what risking everything is like. Isn’t ready for the look in her eyes, the sound of her laugh, to change like he needs something else to fit him.

Max says _you, me, and Isobel—we’re all we’ve got, _and even with the wounds between them clean and bandaged Michael isn’t ready for Max to feel what he feels when he’s alone at night and wondering how much Max means anything he says at all.

And then there’s Alex. Alex, who wants to know him, who has already seen Michael at his very ugliest and more besides. For Michael, if he’s going to make himself an open book, it couldn’t be anyone else but him. Anyone else might not understand the language. Anyone else might smear the ink.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Alex says, and he whispers like this is a sacred moment.

He’s warm and alive under the flat of Michael’s palm, heartbeat going steadily. It’s one thing to feel it in his hand, but is he ready to feel a phantom rhythm tucked beside his own? And how will it feel—a soothing, grounding presence, an extension of Alex just inside him, where he always should be? Or will he be paralyzed, will he have to shut himself up and curl around his chest, like one wrong move could shatter them?

Alex breathes slower, more deliberately, and without him having to say a word Michael matches him breath for breath.

Max says that when it’s easy healing’s just like breathing out. So Michael breathes out, and reaches in, and lets the power flow into his hands.

It’s force, it’s heat, it’s motion inside stillness, it’s every kind of energy in the human body distilled into his blood and pushed by force of will _out _of him and _into _Alex’s body. It’s rolling with a fist to the gut. It’s the follow-through to throwing a punch.

Michael gasps, struggling like a fish on a bank to reinflate his lungs, and when he opens his eyes there are tears on his cheeks, sweat rolling down the back of his neck, and he doubles over to unload his stomach into the trash can they put between his knees before getting started, like his body threw every pressure relief valve all at the same time.

Alex stays frozen still, just blinking, his hand still in the same place, right over his heart. The handprint won’t form for a few hours, at least, but he runs his thumb over his skin there, slow and reverent.

Michael watches the progress of that finger—the way it disturbs the fine hair there—the way it folds back the collar of his flannel shirt, just so slightly. And—it feels cold, being apart from him, all the sudden, he’s gripped with the absolute certainty that he would be impossibly warmer if he could curl up in the center of his chest and be _held _in his arms—

Alex can feel all that too.

His eyes, liquid and dark, dart up to meet Michael’s, his mouth falling open in shock.

And Michael has to jerk his eyes away, a new breathlessness leaping into his throat, because it’s not enough just to control what he _does, _the way he learned to when it was life or death to keep himself from throwing things around the room every time he got pissed off. It’s about who he _is _this time, it’s about bleeding all of who he is into every part of Alex.

He jumps to his feet, grabbing the trash can. “I’ll clean this and get out of your way,” he says, striding for the door, but Alex catches his wrist before he makes it far, and pins him into place.

Voice so low and gentling, Alex says, “Stay, Michael. If we won’t know if it worked for a while—stay, at least until we know how strong it’s going to be.” His eyes fall to Michael’s mouth, and then away. “You’re allowed to stay,” he says.

_Stay _reverberates off Michael’s ribs; it echoes in his skull, it curls up between his liver and his pancreas and makes itself at home there, because Alex isn’t changing his mind. Love, because there’s nothing else to call it, flutters helplessly in Michael’s heart, so helpless and hungry and consuming. He feels it fall at Alex’s feet like a dead thing, like a fresh kill offered to the pack.

There’s nowhere to hide. There’s nowhere to run. There’s just Alex saying _stay, _and feeling all of Michael’s sick-deep love for—the scar on his eyebrow, the missed patch of stubble on his jaw, the freckle between the second and third knuckles on his left hand—for him.

“Stay right here, just for a while,” Alex says, and Michael does.

**Author's Note:**

> the prompt said "distance" and i said "but what if the distance was 0"


End file.
